Parenting News

Fighting Hypotonia

Sudden Impact

Meeta says, “Our bundle of joy, Khushi (name changed), was born a normal, healthy baby and we were over the moon. All was well until she started crawling at 10 months. Her movement was not normal. As parents, we instinctively realised that she was a bit too flabby and much too flexible. Our pediatrician suggested a chromosomal analysis to rule out Down’s syndrome. The diagnosis said Khushi had hypotonia.

Hypotonia is a condition of abnormally low muscle tone (the amount of tension or resistance to movement in a muscle), often involving reduced muscle strength. Usually, it is not a specific disorder but the manifestation of an underlying condition. The cause may lie in the brain, the nervous system or the muscles. Therapies to fight the condition should begin as early as possible.

Loss of Control

While the under laying cause is yet to be known in Kushi’s case, it has been identified as generalized hypotonia. The signs were delayed walking, constipation, myopia, speech delays and feeding problems. She was a happy child, but in the absence of speech, her parents were apprehensive about her comprehension skills.

Typically, hypotonia occurs in an infant during the first three years of life. From birth, the baby starts acquiring control over the various muscle groups, mastering new skills and developing new motor facilities. By the time she is two months old, she can control eyeball movements and, by the fourth month, start raising her upper chest, followed by the lower chest, resulting in a sitting pose. Then she learns to crawl, which implies control over several groups of muscles and coordination between them.

The muscle control thus descends from the head to the toes, and finally, when the baby is a year old, she stands upright and begins to walk. Hypotonia may delay some or all of these stages.

Proper Dose

Once the diagnosis and its repercussions were clear, Meeta and her husband began seeking treatment. Going by conventional medical practice, spectacles to tackle her myopia were prescribed, milk of magnesia was regularly given for constipation, her activity levels were kept on the upper end, and her parents began looking for a speech therapist who would work with a three-year old.

Soon, according to Meeta, “we came across an ‘anthropomorphic’ medical practitioner who believed that the ability to walk, talk and think evolves in that order, and if one were hampered, the child would invariably have trouble with the next two. Speech therapy was not recommended: instead, we started with physiotherapy, rhythmic massage, warm compressions, GFCF diet and nutritional baths”.

Healing Touch

Just how did these efforts help the child?

The importance of physiotherapy is self-evident. The physiotherapist did away with machines and concentrated on developing a personal rapport with the child, making her exercise, according to her needs.

Massages, traditionally, are an integral part of rearing a new born. Rhythmic massages are less vigorous than the usual massages and are done with essential oils chosen to suit the constitution of each child.
 
A gluten-free and casein-free diet (GFCF) comprises food free from wheat, wheat products, dairy milk and milk products. These are known allergens, but unlike eggs, wheat allergy may not show up very distinctly. Kushi was underweight and suffered from president colds and cough until she was put on a GFCF diet. Calcium and protein-rich natural food substitutes to ensure her good health were added. After all, she needed a good muscle mass for the physiotherapist to work with!

Glad Tidings

“We gave nutritional baths to Khushi, using egg, lemon, honey and milk. These not only moisturized the body but helped build and tone up. The ophthalmologists had shattered us by saying that her eyesight would deteriorate till the age of 18 and we could opt for corrective laser surgery only after she turned 21.But regular eye exercise and the daily carrot juice have prevented any deterioration in her vision for the past year. In fact, there has been a slight improvement. A daily regime of food, sleep and play, homoeopathy and working with her senses has helped tremendously
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In the two years since we started these therapis, her progress has been slow but steady. Today, Khushi is a chubby, five–year old chatterbox, who loves singing, dancing and swimming. There’s still a lot of ground to cover, but I sleep easy knowing that we are headed in the right direction and there is a lot that one can do for a hypotonic child’s progress.”

New Horizons

What is anthropomorphical medicine?

Dr Laksmi Prassanna explains: Anthropomorphically medicine is an extension of conventional medicine that takes into account both an individual’s human body and her spiritual aura. It tries to minimize the side effect of regular drugs by using alternative, unconventional therapies like artistic therapies, hydrotherapy, etc along with medication.

In anthroposophy, the five senses of touch, smell, taste, sight and sound are treated extensively as the 12 senses. Hypotonia concerns only the four lower senses - of touch, life senses, balance and movement. These four are the guiding force behind the physical development of a baby; unfold themselves in the first year. When a baby‘s persistent wails stop because you’ve picked her up in yours arms, it is the sense of touch at work. When the baby expresses her hunger and wetness loudly, it is her life sense on display. When she‘s about six months old, the baby starts working around the senses of movement and balance. This translates into crawling, thumb sucking and walking.

Sensory integration therapy, involving the four lower senses, is one therapeutic approach, adopted for a child who can’t use her body muscles in the way they are supposed to be used. Rhythmic massage and a proper, balanced diet can help bring the child’s higher forces (her will) into her senses (physical body), guiding her to use her lower body in the right way, with freedom to act at its own pace.

The child needs time and space to revolve at her own pace, as the higher forces are brought down and guided into a direction that imitates normal physiological development. Prematurely stimulating or interfering with natural processes, e.g. using speech therapy or trying to make the child speak before she is ready, might confuse her and distort development even more.

At this point, it is imperative that parents create a conditional environment for the baby to get over her needs and initiate opportunities for her to develop those facilities.

Every 12 weeks, a new or revised programme, tailor made for each individual child, should be implemented after discussion with the doctor/therapist. In a few years, the child might be able to catch up fully with her peers or at least, show tremendous improvement with these therapies.

Source: Against All Odds, Femina, Mumbai,   September 27, 2006.